Here Be Monsters (and Dragons)
by disillusionist9
Summary: The monster inside of her is desperate to escape, and Ginny finds a unique way to fight him, but even Dragons need saving sometimes - tumblr prompt from Ash-Castle DRINNY ONESHOT - Eighth Year Hogwarts


Scratching quills filled the otherwise silent classroom, strips of winter sunlight shimmering through the thin windows on the south side of the classroom. Professor Torrent paced slowly up and down the aisles to make her presence known to any would-be cheaters, and Ginny could count the remaining time by where she heard the tinkling of the professor's earrings. The entire circuit took exactly forty three seconds. Only counting the steps kept her from groaning in frustration at the tedious distraction.

As soon as she signed her name at the top of the parchment, she shot up and rushed to turn in the exam at the front desk, effectively skirting the hawkish gaze of the temporary (they were all temporary) Defense professor.

Fingernails filed to blunt squares grasped the air towards Ginny, the professor's mouth thinning as she warred with herself whether to call a reminder for the homework or leave the seventh year to her own devices. The decision was made for her as Ginny slipped out of the door at the back of the classroom.

She didn't stop to catch her breath, hauling her bookbag's strap over her shoulder more steadily, as she all but sprinted up to the common room. Several students waved or called her name as she passed, and she made sure to wave or smile at each of them, using her body language to keep from falling victim to a conversation. Her head pounded, and her breath came in gasps, by the time she reached the sparsely filled Gryffindor girls' dormitory.

Relief was the handle of her broom. Relief was rushing away in tight bindings for Quidditch and loose clothes on top of them. Relief was the sting of cold air on her cheeks and through her hair whipping away the claws the specters in her mind constantly kept sharpened. The little tatters of her soul stitched back together as she looped and dove, ducked and rolled, and rushed so closely to the ground and stands that she got splinters in her knee one go-around. She cast a Silencing charm on herself and screamed until her throat was raw, using the force of her anger to push Tom back where he belonged, back to the brink of death, as he was not welcome with her in the sky.

Tom pushed back. She'd waited too long to fly and the little black scar on her soul shoved when she pushed, digging his heels in and clawing at her resolve.

Ginny rose higher, and higher, far above the stands, until the ice in her nose matched the ice on the grass below.

 _You are a monster, Ginevra Weasley_.

 _No_! she snapped at the voice whispering behind her eyes. _You are the monster, and you do not control me anymore_!

Breathing was difficult here, and it was a race against who could hold out against the blackness of a faint longer. Tom lived off the oxygen in her lungs, and Ginny's battering beat him down until he was a smear back at the bottom of her mind, little more than a pinprick of darkness below the aching white of lightheaded euphoria.

She awoke in a different white cloud, several hundred meters lower than she'd been minutes before. Her eyes blinked beneath flying goggles that were fogged at the edges, and a cold blanket of snow beneath her. She blinked again and focused on the face swimming in front of her instead of the blinding white of the moon on the snow.

"Weasley!" the face said. "How many fingers?"

Ginny coughed heavily, the air in her lungs burning with the quantity of it. "Three, Malfoy!"

Draco moved away from her vision and pulled her up in the process, the momentum of his lean back hoisting her upright. He released her arm as soon as she was able to hold herself up. Ginny shook her head to dislodge a few heavy ice crystals stuck in her hair, and saw her broom sticking out of the snow next to his.

"I thought you weren't allowed a broom?" she blurted, fighting for a tighter purchase on reality, and her reality did not include a Draco Malfoy looking over her with concerned scrutiny.

His gaze snapped to vitriolic instantly. "Thought you knew better than to fly that high without the proper charms, Weasley."

"Oh, piss off," she said, standing slowly and knocking the packed snow from her legs. Stopping on her march to her broom, she turned to regard him carefully, nestled in a snowbank with a gaping mess where she'd landed, calculating how quickly he must have drawn his wand in the half light to stop her fall to earth. Before she could think better of it, she snatched up her broom, tossed his over, and said. "Just try to keep up, will you?"

* * *

[a/n] October 3rd, 2016 - _tumblr prompt from Ash-Castle, who asked for Drinny - Here Be Monsters (and Dragons)_


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